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Tyngsboro veteran had a will to live

The title of the documentary on firsthand accounts from American World War II prisoners said it all about Victor Cote's life: "I just wanted to live."

Cote said the phrase repeatedly in interviews for the documentary, and if he didn't say it at the time, it was the same attitude that got him through three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp during the war. His weight fell to 80 pounds, and he used a clever trick to get himself more rice when portions were so small, hammering down the bottom of his small bowl to make it big enough for a second helping.

He often thought of fellow prisoners who were in worse shape than he was, though, giving them his food rations before getting back in line to get food for himself.

Victor Cote, of Tyngsboro, was held in a Japanese prisoner camp for three and a half years during World War II. COURTESY PHOTO

"He had a very strong will to live," said Karen Dubois of Dracut, the oldest of Cote's four children.

Cote didn't merely survive as a prisoner of war, but remained active past age 90. His health declined after a stroke in October 2010, and he died Feb. 3, a few months shy of his 93rd birthday. He is survived by his wife, Beulah; his daughters, Dubois, Donna Stamp and Bonnie Noel; and son, Warren Cote. He had been splitting his time between New Smyrna Beach, Fla., and Tyngsboro.

Born in Tewksbury, Cote was one of 11 children in a poor family. He had to earn a paycheck, so he enlisted in the Army Air Corps.

"He made himself go through school, even though (his family) wanted him home working," Dubois said.

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It was 1940, the United States had yet to enter the war, and Cote was sent to training camp at Fort Slocum in New York. Of the five men in his group -- three from Pepperell and two from Lowell -- only Cote survived the war. He was a file clerk stationed in the Philippines, and was ill in the hospital when the Japanese captured soldiers after the Battle of Bataan. He was captured when he left the hospital looking for food, a few days after what was called the Bataan Death March, a dayslong march in the Philippines in which thousands of American soldiers died.

Victor and Beulah Cote on their wedding day. Victor Cote survived three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp during World War II. He died earlier this month shortly before turning 93. COURTESY PHOTO

Those who survived were sent to prison camps. They were shipped by the Japanese on what were known as "hell ships," with cruel conditions and tightly packed quarters.

Diane Fischler, who conducted a World War II oral history project for the University of Florida featuring Cote and three other POWs, said it was those hell ships that were the worst experience. Some were bombed by American war planes because pilots didn't know Americans were inside, she said.

"He was one of the most interesting guys I ever met," Fischler said. "He experienced hell on earth but he overcame that to some extent."

Cote barely let it show, but he remained bothered for the rest of his life by what he went through, still having occasional nightmares, she said. He was also bitter at the American government for POWs not receiving better recognition and help after the war.

"The government treated him very badly, in his eyes, and I'm sure he was," Fischler said.

At Camp Bilibid in the Philippines, Cote was in charge of burying dead soldiers. He worked for a year at a Japanese coal mine when, just across the bay, the Americans bombed Nagasaki. He was freed days later after the Japanese fled.

Back in America after a time in the hospital to regain his health, Cote met through mutual friends Beulah Gelineau, who later became his wife. He proposed to her on their way back from a trip to Boston, when he stopped on a driveway in the middle of a cemetery off Gorham Street in Lowell. Gelineau said yes, but also insisted that she be brought home so she wouldn't get in trouble.

"He was looking for a place to pull off coming from Boston, I guess," Dubois, his daughter, said with a laugh.

Cote first became a Lowell police officer but after a few years switched to become a firefighter. It was the role he kept from 1952 to 1982, retiring as a deputy chief. His family said he was kind, loving, generous, loved crossword puzzles, golfing and the New England Patriots. He didn't talk at all about his experiences until decades later, and even then rarely let the pain of what he went through show.

"When he came home and met my mother and got married and started a family, he never looked back," said Stamp, his daughter from Tyngsboro.

"If he had his demons," she added, "we never knew about them."

Stamp said her dad wanted to experience everything he could, "and he dragged us along with him, which was great," she said.

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